5 Things We Learned About Joey Badass on 'Everyday Struggle'

Joey Badass came in to talk to the 'Everyday Struggle' crew, and he opened up about New York radio and much more.

Though a lot of the rap world has been happy to throw dirt on the New York hip-hop scene, Joey Badass continues to carve out his lane within the city's storied history. After coming up through the underground and breaking through with projects like 1999, Badass has since established himself as one of the foremost lyricists in the game on recent projects like All-Amerikkkan Badass.

The 22-year-old rapper walks a fine line between paying homage to the old guard of rap while still staying relevant and fresh in today's scene. Badass sat down with the Everyday Struggle crew on Monday, and talked about a bunch of topics, from the stagnation of New York radio, Amber Rose, and much more. Here's what we learned from the interview.

Joey feels New York radio was slow to recognize him.

The DJs in New York City have a lot of cultural gravitas, and though the streaming era has changed how we hear new music for the first time, Badass noted that he felt unsupported by local radio when he was on the come up.

"There are many ways I could have been more supported," said Badass. "The world recognized me before my home did. They should have jumped right on it. I was young, I didn’t know how to establish relationships and keep them."

He takes (some) responsibility for not nurturing relationships early.

Despite how he feels on the radio front, Badass admitted he's partially responsible for his own predicament. Still, he continued to emphasize that people outside his hometown were happy to show love early on compared to his hometown.

"I didn’t realize I was burning a bridge by not communicating," he said. "I think radio should never be late on local artists. I’m from here, I’m one of the few touring globally. Just me and [ASAP] Rocky ... L.A., they've always supported me. I'm getting more love from L.A. than my own town."

Joey spent a lot of money making All-Amerikkkan Badass, but he doesn't regret it.

Fans like to focus on how much an album sold or how much profit is being made from a tour, but few people think about what it takes to put together an album. Badass highlighted the cost of putting together his latest project, but he told Everyday Struggle it's not a concern for him.

"This is probably the most expensive album," he said. "I probably spent like, I want to say a quarter [million]. It was definitely worth it, every cent."

Joey thinks most hip-hop beef is lame.

After Remy Ma put Nicki Minaj on the Summer Jam screen, the Everyday Struggle crew had to talk about their long, drawn-out beef. But the young rapper claims he doesn't really pay any mind to that sort of thing, because he has a preference for settling the score through competitive freestyle instead of trading songs back-and-forth.

"Don't care about that beef shit," he said. "I prefer sparring. Hip-hop beef is not going back and forth with tracks."

He thinks you should respect hip-hop's youth movement.

The Everyday Struggle crew has had dust ups with some of the younger rappers in the game—what up, Lil Yachty—but Badass thinks a whole lot of people are underselling just how big some of the kids on the rise are right now.

"Playboi Carti has the whole youth in his hand," he said. Badass went on to defend Yachty, and accused Budden of downplaying the movement behind him. "You just don't want him to be happy. He might not be a star in two years, [but] he's a mega star right now."

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